The present invention relates to fish processing, and more particularly to a method and apparatus for filleting fish.
Various types of automatic machines have been developed for cleaning and filleting fish. These fish filleting machines include various, mechanisms for removing the viscera, bones and undesirable belly meat. See for example U.S. Pat. Nos. 3,902,222, 3,955,242, 4,008,509, 4,056,866, 4,236,275, and 4,484,375. However, due to the difficulty of properly positioning different size fish and different species of fish with respect to cleaning and cutting devices, meat loss problems have remained. Meat loss problems are especially acute on machines for filleting fish such as salmon, snapper, grouper, whitefish and walleye since such fish are considered gourmet fish and may be sold in fish markets for premium prices. Therefore, it is desirable to minimize the mount of meat loss in order to maximum economic return.
Other recent automatic machines have been developed that incorporate sophisticated electronic controls for controlling the position of cleaning and cutting devices with respect to the fish being processed within the machine. However, such machines are expensive to manufacture, difficult to start up, and expensive to maintain.